Impressing the earth
19 September 2026
Listen to my narration of this piece (8 min)
A couple of weeks ago I was on a dance floor made of soil. Somehow it got me thinking about what it means to be human.
I have written before about the impressions we leave on people, and they on us. But impressions aren’t merely human-human phenomena. For as long as we have been human - longer, even - we have left marks on the world. Our species, in particular, seems to have an obsession with physical legacy and creating visible symbols of our lives. Antony Gormley - famous sculptor and among other things the artist behind the angel of the north - wrote the following [1]
“” In our species’ history, the urge to shape matter predates language. Sculpture is the most resistant and atavistic [atavistic: relating to a remote ancestor] of all artforms, but it is also the most radical. It insists that by changing matter, it changes the world. Sculpture, rather than making a picture of a thing, is the thing. In that respect, it is a more powerful agent of change than any two-dimensional representation or symbol. As such, it can act as a powerful antidote to the allure of the virtual that has arrived with screen-based communication. Sculpture reinforces that we are things as well as living beings in a world of things, and that our relationship to the world is most powerfully reinforced in firsthand physical experience. ””
This resonates with me. But I think it is true even of more ordinary changes to the physical world than sculpture. There is something deeply satisfying about having left an imprint, any imprint. The world is transient, sure, and all of our creations will eventually succumb to entropy, but the fact we have developed the ability to deliberately leave impressions in the earth speaks to our wish for eternal impact. This manifests from very young. How exciting it is to build a sandcastle and watch in energetic anticipation to see how long it can keep the salty sea at bay.
This instinct of ours has had bad press recently - and quite rightly. It often holds in it a superiority and domination over the natural world. We have done untold damage to our home through our fight against the natural order of chaos. Far from living with the land, we have cornered nature and only periodically feel the sharp barbs of its pushback. These barbs may get sharper still - and more frequent - if recent years are anything to go by. This is not to say we should revoke our cities and reservoirs and bridges. It is truly astonishing what we have been able to achieve as a society, and it has allowed far more human life to exist than ever has before. It is just not surprising that as we give nature less and less space, it does so with an indignation that we may fall foul of. But here I want to talk about the fainter things that we do - things we do without machinery and on small scales.
So to this camping trip, where we danced in the woods on the twigs and the soil. I remember feeling the earth beneath me. And as the night went on the energy of joy was held and stored in the ground beneath. Dents and divots and ridges formed. I went back the morning after - after a huge downpour - and you’d not have guessed anything had happened if you did not know. But if you did, the uneven crevices and flattened leaves represented movement of people. Twigs were broken in irregular places - wood exposed to the damp morning air. This place was calm again.
I spend quite a lot of my time following paths. It amazes me the upkeep they need to prevent being lost to obscurity. In the spring growth explosion a few weeks is enough for a path to be left buried beneath piles of green matter. And yet, it only needs one or two pioneering ramblers to create the first whispers of a recognisable track. A few trampled brambles, a few leaning blades of grass, a few broken stems. Soon it will be back.
I always enjoy looking back at the metronomic footprints left behind after walking along the border between the sand and the sea. It’s only possible to see stark footprints in the channel where the sand is wet and the sea is sandy - where it’s hard to say whether the sea is in the sand or the sand is in the sea. Your feet sink - printing themselves - etching a scene. A scene which is not long for this world. The next wave comes, proving itself. The picture is gone.
A bitterly cold winter morning - but not enough to freeze the bogs. A flock descends on the local park for the cross country midlands league race two. Condensed breath flows out and into the fog. They run. First in a huge group, together, and then in drips and drabs. They go through the bogs as wildebeest do a river crossing. Slap, slap, slap. The spikes plunge into the loose mud, gripping nothing. The ground is ripped apart by the metal stakes, its muddy wounds wincing in the faint sun. Then it is over. In a fortnight the races will claim another.
Maybe this deep instinctual experience of the transience of it all is exactly what makes it so satisfying to stamp - literally, in the above cases - the world with our intentions.
[1] https://artreview.com/antony-gormley-sculpture-is-the-most-radical-of-artforms/